Uganda Bars Congo Travelers From Transit Amid Ebola Concerns

Uganda has tightened travel controls and restored mandatory passenger locator forms after a traveler who later tested positive for Bundibugyo virus disease in Nigeria prompted concerns about possible Ebola transmission across national borders. The measures apply at the country's entry and exit points, while travelers with recent travel histories involving the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are temporarily barred from transiting through Uganda.

Uganda's Ministry of Health announced the restrictions on October 23, 2026, as investigations continued into the infection of a woman who returned to Abuja, Nigeria, after spending about two weeks in Uganda. Officials are working with Nigerian authorities to reconstruct her movements and determine where and when she contracted the virus.

According to Uganda's Director General of Health Services, Prof. Charles Olaro, the woman showed no symptoms when she left Uganda. The ministry has requested detailed travel itineraries and genomic sequencing results from Nigerian authorities, where available, to help establish the circumstances of the infection.

Olaro said the investigation had not yet established when the woman's symptoms began or the circumstances surrounding her infection.

"Available information indicates that the traveller did not exhibit symptoms at the time of departure from Uganda. However, investigations are continuing to establish the timing of symptom onset and the circumstances surrounding her infection," Prof. Charles Olaro, Director General of Health Services, said.

The ministry has reinstated locator forms for all incoming travelers, regardless of their country of origin, to support contact tracing and follow-up. Officials have also strengthened infection prevention procedures at border crossings and health facilities and continued surveillance nationwide.

Olaro warned that authorities would enforce Uganda's Public Health Act against breaches of public health requirements. People entering through unauthorized routes could be referred to the relevant authorities for action under the law.

Uganda has also urged communities near its borders to report suspected unauthorized crossings so officials can conduct appropriate screening and public health follow-up. The government said the restrictions were precautionary and maintained that the country had no active internal Ebola outbreak.

"The Ministry of Health wishes to assure the country that Uganda remains Ebola-free. Travellers, visitors and the general public are urged to remain calm and vigilant, practise proper hand hygiene, and comply with screening and other public health measures at all points of entry," Olaro said.

The investigation has drawn attention to possible links among cases reported in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda. The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said the Nigerian patient, the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja, had not traveled to the DRC and was believed to have contracted the virus while visiting Uganda with her husband.

The World Health Organization declared Uganda Ebola-free in August after the country reported 20 cases in May and June, most of which were imported from the DRC. Uganda has not detected a local case since June, according to the source report.

Health officials are also investigating a possible connection between the Nigerian patient and Kenya's first confirmed Ebola patient. Both reportedly departed from Uganda's Entebbe International Airport on the same day in early October, while the Kenyan patient died two days later in a Nairobi hospital.

However, experts have cautioned that the timing of the departures does not establish a transmission link. Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist and member of the WHO's Ebola emergency committee, said investigators needed epidemiological evidence connecting the individuals.

"I think that is very speculative unless there is evidence of sharing the same space in a manner that could explain that," Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist and member of the WHO's Ebola emergency committee, said.

Koopmans said simply being at the same large airport was not sufficient evidence of a connection between the cases.

"Random presence at the same location, a large airport, is not a supported epidemiological link by any standard of what we currently know," Koopmans said.

Neema Rusibamayila Kimambo, the WHO's representative to Kenya, also said investigators had not identified infections among people who shared the flight with the Kenyan patient or among airport staff.

"Among the contacts that we even have here in country, even all those who are on the plane with this patient and all airport staff, we have not had any infections in that group," Kimambo said.

The broader outbreak has spread across four countries in eastern, central and western Africa, according to the source report. The outbreak was first detected in mid-May in the DRC, where it has infected nearly 10,000 people and killed more than 4,600.

The virus can cause fever, vomiting, diarrhea and severe internal or external bleeding. Transmission occurs through direct contact with infected bodily fluids or contaminated objects, and infected people become contagious after symptoms begin. The rare Ebola species identified in the outbreak has no standard approved treatment or vaccine.